The Prioress of the Carmelite convent of Katowice, Sister Maria Dorota of the Holy Eucharist, wrote thanking you, our supporters: "We are full of gratitude for the help you have given us over so many years, and we thank God, through Mary and Saint Joseph, that your charity exists and grows. We pray for you and your benefactors, that the good God may reward you many times over for what you have shared with us."

Contemplative religious devote themselves entirely to prayer. By doing so, they bring the needs of the whole world before God. At the same time, their contemplative life in the seclusion of the convent enclosure makes it difficult for them to support themselves by everyday activities. That is why ACN has always helped contemplative religious Sisters throughout the world, and not least in Poland, where we have been supporting the contemplative communities for almost 50 years now.

The Carmelites continue to have new vocations to this day. In fact, the Carmelite convent in Katowice had so many new vocations that they founded a new convent in 2001 in Tarnow, which started with 15 nuns. Today there are 19 of them, and their average age is just 35 years. As a result they have already been able to "export" Sisters from here into some of the smaller convents in order to strengthen the convents there.

The Sisters live a very simple life. They wear hemp sandals which they make themselves, and they sleep on hard plank beds with sacks of straw for mattresses. The very basic furniture in their cells is made of rough wood. The food on the table is mainly the fruit and vegetables from their own convent garden.

The Sisters partly support themselves by sewing and embroidering religious vestments and by making plaster figures of saints. Nonetheless, they are still dependent on annual help from ACN. Thanks to the generosity of our benefactors, we were able to help this year again, with the sum of $3,900.